With increasing demand for more information to be supplied to homes and/or businesses, many network communication providers are switching or upgrading their networks to optical communications network. Optical communications networks typically offer high-speed voice, video, and data transmission to/from homes and/or businesses. Conventional exemplary optical networks include fiber to the node/neighborhood (“FTTN”), fiber to the curb (“FTTC”), fiber to the building (“FTTB”), fiber to the home (“FTTH”), fiber to the premises (“FTTP”), or other edge location to which a fiber network extends.
To transmit optical signals from a source to a destination over a Passive Optical Network (“PON”), for example, the optical signals typically travel through multiple passive optical components such as fiber cables, optical splitters and attenuators that make up the optical distribution network (“ODN”). In one example, ODN and PON are the same or similar component and they can be described fiber network between an optical line terminal (“OLT”) and optical network terminals (“ONTs”). PON typically can be considered as a specific type of ODN.
OLT and ONTs, for example, convert user data between electrical form and optical form to facilitate the user data to travel over the ODN. PON is referred for residential as well as commercial use. Similar PON technology used for enterprise LAN solutions is generally known as Optical LAN. PON is capable of serving multiple points or premises based on a single optical fiber. For example, PON may be able to individually distribute information from one optical fiber to multiple locations. A typical PON may be able to serve anywhere from one (1) to 128 locations and/or nodes.
To process optical information, optical data (or signals) typically needs to be converted to electrical data before the information can be processed. Conventional optical and electrical conversion in a PON uses either a large MDU (multi dwelling units) with up to 24 Ethernet output ports installed in a telecommunication closet or a sizable conventional ONT (PON interface) with one to four Ethernet ports placed near user's personal computer (“PC”) and/or vicinities. A problem, however, associated with a large MDU is that it requires relatively long cables to reach the end user. Depending on the applications, long cables such as copper or coaxial cables can impair quality of connection and degrade network performance.
Another drawback associated with a sizable or large size of conventional ONT device is that it can consume additional power. As a result, a dedicated power supply may be employed for such conventional ONT devices. Another shortcoming for conventional ONTs is that their Ethernet ports are limited to 1 Gigabit data rates.